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Posted By:
cre8pc
309 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://cre8pc.com)
Category: Google SEO
18 Comments
Posted By:
cre8pc
309 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://cre8pc.com)
Category: Google SEO
18 Comments
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Comments
Great article. An algorithm can't understand intent. Humans evaluators viewing a site must spend a good amount of time studying what is going on and even then might have problems understanding the intent of the webmaster. Factor this in with the number of web pages online and the number of available human evaluators Google has and its pretty clear this can't be a good sign for quality review.
Thank you Daria. :)
Some measure of intent can be gleaned from the pattern and type of linking and how it differs (or not) from everyone else in that neighbourhood and how it campares
and differs from that type of linking associated with known good sites and known bad sites.
On some sites perhaps. For a forums, no. I'd love for a Google rep to kindly explain to me why Cre8asiteforums was hit. Outgoing links are scrambled for our own protection. We've never paid for links or sold links. All our meager revenue is given away to education. Search engines try so hard to automate a way to classify, categorize, lump into perceived notions of "good" and "bad"...and "punish" those that don't assimiliate well.
I never would've know Google tapped the forums if not for this being in the news. We never paid any attention to our PRscore. What bothers me is the "feeling" that something has happened, that's unexplained to us. Should we be concerned? Did we do something wrong? Does this score, that was useless anyway, mean anything now that it's been messed with, or was this a weird PR stunt?
It's a real slap in the face to site and business owners who work consciously.
"I'd love for a Google rep to kindly explain to me why Cre8asiteforums was hit..We've never paid for links or sold links. "
Just look at your home page. You may have valid reasons for running TLAs to
CARDBOARD BOXES
ACCESSIBLE LEGAL INFORMATION
I know they are Text Link Ads because that's what I've been told by one of the forum members.
...but let's face it. What use do those links serve to me (I visit the forum regularly, though I don't necessarily post) or other people who come to cre8 for SEO information?
Yes. They're TLA ads. If those advertisers want to waste their money advertising cardboard boxes on a web design/SEO forums, isn't that THEIR problem? Why are we penalized because we offer to host TLA ads? Our Website Hospital discusses web sites of all kinds...maybe someone has a cardbox or legal site up for review? (But yes. I always wonder who is crazy enough to spend money on TLA ads on the forums for things totally unrelated to our subject matter.)
And as far as I know, we're the only forums that takes all revenue and uses it to fund education for the SEO community, by funding internships, contests, and courses.
So sure. We can remove TLA. But why? Because of a PR score? That's not enough reason for me. It's reason enough, however, to remove the Google ads, which is likely what we're going to do.
Who is Google to judge who advertises on a site?
Like I said. This is guesswork. Nobody from Google has volunteered any information to me. I don't expect them to either.
"If those advertisers want to waste their money advertising cardboard boxes on a web design/SEO forums, isn't that THEIR problem?"
Coming from someone who values Usability above alot of things, I find that line hard to swallow. Why have a link on your site that serves no purpose to users?
If some idiot wants to blow $400/mo on a chewing gum link, why not? And whether you accept that deal or not is your decision. But unless you know absolutely nothing about Google, don't tell me you're unaware of the fact that having blatant off-topic links on your home page - whether paid or unpaid - is not without risk.
It's your right to have TLA links on your site. And it's Google's right to do whatever it wants with its toolbar. Or are you saying you can do whatever you want with your site, but Google can't do whatever it wants with its website? That's being hypocritical - and I don't like to see it coming from an SEO thought leader like you that I respect.
You are in a business relationship with Google. If you want to bow out of that relationship, fine. Block Google using robots.txt disallow and use Yahoo/MSN/Mahalo/whatever to run searches. You profit from Google and yet you pretend you owe Google absolutely nothing.
I just told you that any ad money is given away and you're hassling me about letting you down by my statement?
I think the forums was a bad choice for someone at Google to penalize. None of us are paid to run it. Everything we made, from any source, was given away to the industry we've supported for 5 years, for free. The forums has off-site links to countless sites on a zillion topics, years and years of it. It's one of the reasons forums are spammed so much with link drops. We don't "nofollow" them. The programmers came up with a solution, before "nofollow" existed.
We do not make a profit. Never have.
Usability? The TLA ads are on a static page that few people ever go to, at the bottom of it, with a scroll to boot. We don't promote those ads. We don't seek or solicit them. I helped test their software when TLA first launched, and pretty much as a favor to them, left a spot on the forums homepage for them. I do stupid things like this for my friends.
Google Ads, on the other hand, have been put INSIDE the forums, on different software and directory, and were treated like Kings.
We quietly got about $400 a month from both places combined. And we give it all away, after I pay the taxes on it.
I don't earn a dime for going to the trouble of doing this. As far as we were aware, our PR score never factored into who bought TLA ads on our homepage. One site, btw, is tied to an author in the SEO industry, and its not the directory ad link I'm talking about.
Obviously I've let you down. That's hard for ME to swallow, since I try so hard at Cre8asite.
Yep, we probably shouldn't have TLA ads on Cre8asite Forums. We're pretty much a menace to the Web as we know it. :)
"I just told you that any ad money is given away and you're hassling me about letting you down by my statement?"
Kim, it doesn't matter where the money goes. What matters to Google is that the links you're selling can negatively impact its search results. You want Google to be more open-minded about your advertising decisions and yet you seem to have no interest in reciprocating.
This has nothing to do with ethics. Google's business model is anchored in delivering quality search results to users. It's SERPs are Google's bread and butter. It will go after anything that threatens that business model. If you find spammers spamming your forums, would you ignore them, or would you delete their accounts?
Same thing.
I have TLAs on my blog. I also lost a notch of TBPR during this update. I have no plans to disable my TLAs. I am not sitting from up high passing judgements on your business model. Its your site; you have the right to do whatever you want with it.
But so does Google. And I believe Google gets hassled way more often about what it does by thousands of webmasters than you by someone like me.
"I'd love for a Google rep to kindly explain to me why Cre8asiteforums was hit. Outgoing links are scrambled for our own protection. We've never paid for links or sold links."
What do you think a Google rep is going to tell you?
1) You're an SEO forum linking to a site about cardboard boxes and legal information.
2) You got nofollow-free paid text links on your site.
You're acting as if you have no clue why you're penalized. We've known for years that blatant, manipulative outbound links involve risk.
"Yep, we probably shouldn't have TLA ads on Cre8asite Forums. We're pretty much a menace to the Web as we know it. :)"
Bill, this is not about TLAs. I run TLAs too, like I said.
Secondly, take Google's POV for a second if you want to understand why TLAs on cre8asiteforums is a problem. One little TLAs isn't going to harm the web - just like one little car factory won't produce enough pollution for anyone to care. But when you got billions of car factories, things start to add up.
Isn't it Google's job to keep its index clean? Absolutely. But if you knowingly contribute to Google's problem, you're not in a position to call foul when Google hands you a penalty.
You're right. We should probably get rid of all the cars, too.
When the Google Rep came to me several years ago, asking if we'd consider putting their ads on our FREE forums, we went to the trouble of trying to figure out how to insert their code and make it live nicely in Invision software. It took a few months, we did it, and that was that.
At no time did Mike, their Rep, ever tell me to not let anyone else advertise in our forums. I signed no contract.
We're NOT an SEO forum. Cre8asiteforums was never just about SEO. It's birth site was, from 1998 to 2002. When I accepted the idea of turning it into a Board, I added usabilty, web design, a law section for Bill, business marketing section for Ammon, CSS for Adrian, etc. etc. I took care of my friends. IT'S WHAT I DO.
I expect Google to contact me if we were in violation of something because this is how I do business. I don't threaten people or undermine their efforts when they do something I don't like. Expecting someone to talk to me, from Google, is unrealistic of course. But, shoot me and humiliate me because I have different values from Google.
It took no effort for someone to personally contact me to get permission to put their ads on the forums but they couldn't email me to say they have a problem with an outbound link to a cardbox site that was on a separate site from the actual forums?
I yanked the TLA ads and am pulling the Google ads because Google only brought us $150 a month. That small amount of money doesn't justify, in mind, the sheer hell and aggravation and humiliation of this experience.
We had, and always will have, good intent at Cre8asiteforums.
The algo putting your URL in the paid-links-toolbar-hell-queue didn't read your content. It's trained to detect paid links, that's all. You're not dealing with humans. No mercy, no exceptions, and no place to hide. It seems even youtube had questionable linkage, you're in good company ;)
Kim, since you never bought into Google's toolbar PR score, then why remove the TLA ads? There's no humiliation in something that you know has no meaning.
You stated numerous great reasons for why you have the TLA ads. So keep them.
Also, on your forum, you scramble the signature links for a reason, right? What exactly was that reason, and if you think about it, is it possible that the same reason could apply to the ads you were featuring on your site? (Like perhaps they should have the same scrambling?)
At this point, the TBPR reduction doesn't seem to be affecting anyone's traffic or rankings, so if your ads make you money and that money is being put to good use, it would be a shame for you to remove them over something that isn't important.
I've removed TLA and Google Ads because we're going to change our way of generating revenue to something that gives us the freedom to do business the way we choose to :)
Links are scrambled as a defense against linking out to "bad neighborhoods". This is another one of those things that's a Google demand.
It comes down to whether or not I want the freedom to decide how I will do business. I choose to not to do it with a company that wants to push me around. We can do better at the forums, for the forums and for the forums community - and we will.
"You're right. We should probably get rid of all the cars, too."
I'd hate to see you at the head of a cigarette company.
>>It comes down to whether or not I want the freedom to decide how I will do business. I choose to not to do it with a company that wants to push me around.
Absolutely.
Perhaps the automated targeting was partly aimed at TLA because they sell text links, it would be a way to get to TLA and discourage the people that buy and display their ads. Then there is the whole idea of high profile SEO industry sites getting PR knocked because Google knows SEOs will talk about it and the visibility of possible penalties will rise in the industry.
I'd have to question any company that uses fear to solve problems, especially when the PR problem was created by that same company in the first place.
Consider it Sphann! Superb stuff as usual, Kim :)